Jury says girl’s killer should be sentenced to death
WAYNESBURG – Jeffrey Robert Martin’s daughter Friday said she was thankful a “monster” had been taken off the street moments after a jury decided Martin should be sentenced to death for strangling a 12-year-old girl to death in June 2006. The Greene County jury that found Martin, 51, guilty on Thursday of first-degree murder and rape in the killing of Gabrielle Bechen deliberated for a little more than an hour Friday afternoon before returning with the decision for the death penalty.
Formal sentencing will take place later.
Martin’s daughter, Jennifer Martin, 24, sat with the Bechen family during the last few days of the trial and cried when the Jury’s choice of sentence was announced.
Some members of the Bechen family and their friends also cried, while others muffled their cheers in acknowledgement of courtroom decorum.
Jennifer Martin said she sat with the Bechens to express condolence and love.
The two years since her father’s arrest have been hard on her, she admitted to the media outside the courtroom.
She said he “denies the whole thing” in letters he occasionally sends her from prison.
“He was never a father to me. He was never there for me,” she said.
She said she thanks the jurors, state police and Greene County prosecutors “for taking a monster off the street.”
No other members of Martin’s family were present when the verdicts from the trial, which started May 1, or sentencing were read.
His attorney, Greene County Public Defender Harry Cancelmi, said Martin’s wife and mother were subpoenaed to testify during the sentencing phase of the trial, but they did not appear.
Martin displayed no reaction when either verdict was read and said nothing when he was led from the courtroom Friday.
When asked if the sentence provided the family with closure, Christopher Bechen, the victim’s father, said, “There’s no such thing.”
Greene County District Attorney Marjorie Fox said prosecutors took no pleasure in seeking the death penalty, but the evidence clearly warranted the sentence.
The mandatory sentence for first-degree murder is life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
The last capital murder case in the county was in 1995 and the defendant was sentenced to life in prison, Fox said.
“Justice was served for Gabby,” said Fox.
Shannon Presock, who is related to the Bechens by marriage and lives across the street, wept as she read a statement to the media.
“We know Gabby is looking down and smiling that justice was served today,” she said.
She thanked police, prosecutors and the volunteers who helped police and the FBI search for the girl.
Gabrielle Bechen was reported missing June 13 after she rode an all-terrain vehicle from her Dunkard Township home to the nearby farm on Mount Joy Road where Martin had been employed as a hand for about four years.
She wasn’t supposed to ride the ATV without telling her parents, they testified last week, but she did that day. Martin was convicted of raping and killing her then burying the body, ATV and other evidence on the wooded 300-acre farm.
Police testified they noticed Martin watching them at times when they were searching through sections of the farm on June 17, when the search focused on the property.
Martin was arrested after two of the volunteer searchers discovered the ATV buried and covered with manure near a creek off a horse trail.
He led police to the gravesite, where he covered the body with lime before filling it in.
Martin’s testimony on Tuesday was vastly different from the recorded confession he gave police the day he was arrested.
In the confession, which was played in court Monday, Martin said he strangled the girl to death after she rode her ATV to the farm and threatened to tell her parents he molested her.
Prosecutors argued that he raped the girl and then killed her to prevent her from telling anyone.
In his testimony, he said a man, whose truck ran out of gas in front of the farm, offered him $100 to help him dispose of an ATV, and he noticed a body in the man’s truck after they buried the vehicle.
He said he went back to work, but the man drove a backhoe and took lime from the farm, buried the body and then showed him the gravesite.
Martin also claimed police “abused and tortured” him to make him confess.
During the sentencing phase Thursday morning, Martin’s sister, Debbie Martin, and brother, Donald Martin, testified about how he, his four brothers and three sisters grew up in a broken and poor household in Mather with alcoholic and abusive parents.
Donald Martin recalled going two days without eating until a neighbor brought over some green tomatoes, going to school wearing dirty clothes and sleeping on mattresses on the floor with no blankets.
Debbie Martin said her stepfather molested her for several years until she was 11 years old, when she was placed in foster care.
A psychologist from Maryland, who testified for the defense in the penalty phase Thursday, said he found Martin to have a borderline mental disability and some traits of anti-social behavior.
A psychiatrist from West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh testified for the prosecution, saying Martin showed a lack of remorse, deceitfulness and anti-social behavior.
In deciding on the death penalty, the jury found two aggravating circumstances that existed at the time of the homicide outweighed the mitigating circumstances.
If the jury had found that the mitigating circumstances outweighed the aggravating circumstances, they would have been required to sentence Martin to life in prison, according to President Common Pleas Court Judge H. Terry Grimes’ instructions to the panel.
The aggravating circumstances were: Martin murdered the girl to avoid being prosecuted for raping her and the killing took place while he was committing a felony.
Four of the other charges he was convicted of, rape of a child, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and sexual assault, are felonies.
The mitigating circumstances were Martin’s character and history.
Formal sentencing will take place after a pre-sentence report and Megan’s Law evaluation are completed.
There is an automatic appeal process in death penalty cases.
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